


A Method to the Madness

by heavensends



Category: CP Coulter's Dalton - Fandom, Dalton Academy Series
Genre: Gen, M/M, Slow Build, Stuart Trio, freshmen year
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-02-11 04:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2054376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavensends/pseuds/heavensends
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To stretch himself as an actor, Julian Larson investigates the inner worlds of his classmates through the lens of his own emotions. The method to his mad approach to friendship, dramatic roles, and love begins to change as he bears witness to happenings otherwise kept hidden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"When I look at myself straight in the eye, in complete seriousness, I reckon myself the next James Dean," Julian mused through the dorm room mirror to Derek's idling reflection. "Not because I believe I'll die young," he clarified. "You see, don't worry, in the tradition of my Larson predecessors, I'll surely live long past you."

"God help us all-"

"-but because, well, I'm going to work just as hard as Jimmy not just to play characters, but to become them."

Normally such pretentious film talk would prompt Derek to remind his friend of his current Hollywood status as an in-the-awkward-stage B-lister who had just barely countered accusations of nepotism before running off to the secluded boarding school they now called home. Then he'd chuckle in that husky fourteen-year-old Derek voice of his, grab his gym bag, and back away slowly as he watched Jules pout. But today Derek thought better of it and instead honored Julian's sincerity with support.

"Hey man if you want to go method, I say go for it," Derek said.

"Thanks, D. I appreciate it," cooed Julian back to him.

"Just don't go batshit insane. Christian Bale makes a kickass Batman and all but seeing him chopping up that prostitute in that one flick with with the chainsaw, knowing how he puts so much of himself in his roles and all, was just plain disturbing."

"Hey, I've met Christian. He's mentored a good friend of mine. He's nice!"

"He sawed that girl into pieces and smiled with glee."

"He was acting-" Julian persisted.

"method acting!" said Derek back.

"Doesn't make him a serial killer."

"Nothing we can't prove!"

"Dammit, D, at this rate the only emotion I'll have to draw on for my next film is irritation and annoyance." Julian turned around to glare at Derek profusely just as another figure appeared in the doorway.

"Seeing as you'd be gathering your emotions primarily from those you observe while they're around you, irritation and annoyance sounds about right." The newly arrived blonde boy smirked.

"Logan, Logan, you're back!" Derek swung him into a hug with a prolonged pat. "Find any politician's cute daughters for me while you were on the road?"

Logan's expression read he didn't notice any. "My father, the high respected senator he is, would have introduced me to a few," Logan smirked. "Too bad I spent my time far away from him making out with a certain politician's cute son instead."

Julian smiled at that, his Cheshire teeth a-glow. He, too, greeted his friend with a hug. He lingered in on the moment trying to absorb its energy, for the sake of his craft. He had to remember what it felt like to hug a friend, you see, to save the feeling and recreate it in a scene later. So what if maybe it became a little longer than a moment in the process?

"Point is, I'm famished and tired and completely senator-ed out, but no longer as horny as when I left," Logan announced.

"Point is, that's way too much information," said Julian.

"Point is, are you guys going to take me out to dinner or what?"

And then, in unison, Derek and Julian finally agreed on something as they replied "Hell yeah!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The film alluded to in this chapter is American Psycho.
> 
> Characters belong to CP Coulter.


	2. Chapter 2

Julian ate his spinach crepe bite by bite, staring intently at his fork as it poked into the outer crepe and exposed its leafy greens.

"Can you quit looking at your food like that? It's weird. And unsettling," Logan told his friend. They had taken a taxi cab from school to his favorite french restaurant and it was supposed to be a relaxing evening, an opportunity for them to catch up a bit, not a Julian Larson acting class.

"I'm relearning everyday tasks, in order to properly portray them. You guys don't get it, when you're just going through life not paying attention to the details of everything, it's absolutely impossible to fulfillingly encompass - you know - the essence of someone else."

"You're tripping," said Derek. "You've done eleven movies. Let me repeat that, you're fourteen years old, and you've done eleven movies-"

"-twelve if you count that TV special about celebrity children and the price of fame," Logan pointed out.

"I don't."

"-so eleven movies and you're sitting here fiddling around with how to hold a fork. That doesn't seem kind of basic to you?"

Julian sat up, really tall and proper. He fiddled with the curls that hung against his forehead. He continued to fiddle with his fork and observe his bites. Of course he knew simple observation exercises were a bit pedestrian for his caliber of a name. But he figured, if he were to live up to it, he had to be disciplined and purposeful when it came to his craft. He wasn’t going to be just another Hollywood brat who pranced onto people’s television screens expecting to be adored. He had to earn his place. And, he concluded, to find authenticity one must focus on the little things in life.

“So, Logan, are you going to try out for fencing?” Derek asked, turning to his friend with a smile.

“Yeah, I’ve already been practicing with Cy a bit, just to get warmed up, but I think I have a good chance of making the top bracket.”

“I didn’t know you and Cyrus were friends,” Julian murmured.

“He’s on our hall, Jules,” Logan said with an eyeroll. “If you were really keen on details, you would see that I’m friends with _everyone_ on our hall.”

“Okay, forcing polite conversation over afternoon coffee is hardly friendship. Not to mention they are mostly terrified of you after, you know, the whole door slam….thing,” Derek said, stopping himself before bringing up the details of the fear inducing incident he had in mind.

Lo had maybe overreacted a bit two weeks prior to when their current prefect instructed him to please turn down the music. And slamming the door so violently, barely missing the young man’s fingers with a bunch of the other Stuarts watching as they finished brushing their teeth across the hall, was in retrospect not the best way to establish himself for a leadership role. Neither was screaming at the top of his lungs. Or smashing Derek’s headset to the floor when he tossed them to him in friendly suggestion. Derek didn’t really mind that he broke them though, not really, because earlier he had heard through muffled audio the words the Senator had said that day to his son. And Derek knew that Lo did not deserve to be told such things. And he knew how much music meant to him.

“Being friendly now is important for when I’m going to run for prefect later. And, of course, because it’s _nice_ ,” Logan added.

“And, just in case any of them are boyfriend material?” Derek teased.

Julian asked, “Who’s ready for dessert?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julian Larson feels too much at acting class.

A situation like today simply hadn't crossed his mind as being in the realm of possibility.  Julian Larson, young actor that he was, had surrendered himself to a fair number of drama classes in the past.  But none which he could remember had affected him as much as the one he just walked out of.  His chest physically hurt.  What a fool he was for thinking he was strong enough.  As a stray paparazzo's camera flashed in front of him, he winced and imagined what it must be like to see himself from the outside looking in.  What a coward.  He put a hand through his straggly, brown locks.  What dirty streaks his ink filled hands had left when he had rubbed underneath his eyes.

It had begun ordinarily enough, with a simple association improv game.  

“I say spaghetti,” the prestigious acting coach Roy Jenkins murmured to a circle of young stars,  “you say…”

“Italian mobster,” finished the girl to his right.

“She says ‘Italian mobster’ you say…” Mr. Jenkins prompted Julian.

“Al Pacino.”

“Come on, Julian, stay out of the Hollywood name game and get your head back into life.”

“I don’t know any Italian mobsters in real life, sir.”

A laugh from the class.

“How are you so sure?” piped in a blonde, Beverly Hills looking young man.

“How can any of us be sure of the true identities of anyone around us?" lectured the teacher.  "We investigate.  We interrogate.  We gain trust and then suck their lives into the blood of our characters.  That is what you all must do”

“I suppose I have to look further into the secret lives of my classmates than to be sure, sir.  But, okay, let me try again.  She says Italian Mobster, I say laundrymat cover up business.”

“And I say," continued the girl next to Julian. "The comfort of soft clothes fresh out of the dryer.”  And thus began a theme.

“Hot chocolate with a little eggnog consumed on boxing day.”

“Sledding down a hill, clutched on the lap of your best friend, cushioned by snow powder.””

“Switching from your ski boots to snow boots.”

"A warm fire against new fuzzy socks."

“The feeling of sunshine on your back., sleeping on a windowsill.”

It was Julian’s turn again.“Um, the Hamptons.”

“Get more specific, Larson, come on.”

“Um, the feeling of sunshine on your back, sleeping on a windowsill reminds me of playing frisbee poolside with my best friend  at the Hamptons,..”

Mr. Jenkin, sensing the young actor was onto something urged him to continue.  “And what is that like?”

.”..the sun feels like it’s both giving and taking energy as if to coo you into a rest but also say ‘stay awake and here in this moment forever, which is the same feeling I get with my friends when they ask me to come play and chill with them...as if it'll never end’  

“Very good, Larson.  See class, you take an image and you specify a moment a then you articulate the source of your action and intent.  Now, partner up.”

Julian partnered with a girl.  She was a few years older, tall, pretty face, looked like she could be a TV actress but was a bit stiff in her execution of the craft. 

“Imagine what you want most is materialized in front of you.”

“What is this, a therapy session?” the girl murmured.

“What is this, the mirror of erised?” Julian replied.

“This exercise isn’t magic and it certainly isn’t beneficial for your mental health,” Jenkins explained.

“In fact, if approached correctly you’ll probably leave here feeling a bit unhinged.  It will take a lot of effort on your part to be done to its maximum effect, but when done well it will help you embody characters like the greats.”

Julian plopped on the floor, focused and ready to follow instruction.  Anything to be better, to be bigger, to be wiser.

“So, think carefully about what you really want.  And convey that want to your partner.  This is a guessing game. You must show, not tell, your partner what you most desire.”

So Julian began dictating to his amateur actress partner a rendition of his well-rehearsed Oscar acceptance speech.  And she, in the high pitched enthusiasm assumed typically in charades, called out “Oscar! You want an Oscar! Recognition, fame, talent, prestige.”

And Julian felt he did a job well done.  Jenkins disagreed.

“Jesus, Larson.. Stop chickening out!” he yelled.  “You may be young but truly that could not be what you want most.  If you did, God knows you wouldn’t be in middle of nowhere Ohio.  You’d be back home peddling any of your father’s friends to get you a gig playing some emaciated character reaching for hope in pits of despair and we’d put you on a podium and give you a statuette and twenty five seconds to spew that speech and you’d be satisfied.  But you aren’t back home, you’re here and you’re looking for something more than that.”

And that’s when Julian Larson began to dig deep.  How could he convey to this stranger what he truly wanted when he hadn’t exactly pinpointed it himself?  So he thought for a moment.  He thought about how he wanted a family that felt more whole than the one he had.  Not in the sense of mom and dad are united, no, he had resigned to the side effects of divorce long ago.  What he wished is that his dad and mom loved him always as a son, and never just as an actor.  That he wasn’t ever compartmentalized as just a talent in their eyes.

He thought about how he would portray this train of thought.  He imagined what other families must feel like cuddled around a dinner table and improv-ed that.  

“Hello, son.  How was school?” he gestured and then answered himself in a "teenaged" voice.

“It’s fine.  I got my physics report back and, well, dad, I was worried but I pulled through.  B+”

“Very good, indeed.”  Julian said as this imaginary father.  “We’re so proud of you.  That physics stuff can be handful to conceptualize.  But so is Shakespeare, and you were blew us away in that MacBeth play.   Run along now, shoo and go celebrate with your friends by going to the mall or whatever is that you do…”

And the girl said, “normalcy.  What you want most is a family that’s normal.  More than that, supportive of your efforts without pushing you for more.”

And somehow, all this hit a nerve and a second later Julian Larson was burying his face in his palms and furiously wiping away tears.  He was so afraid to let them flow.  He could only imagine what all the  Ohioan wanna-be young actors in the room were thinking right now.  Poor Larson, pushed too hard too young.  Poor Larson, just wants to be normal.  Poor Larson, dropped off by his parents at a boarding that used to be notoriously known as the place to send the boys you wish to hide.  And it all became a little too much to think about, and his chest hurt, so instead of taking hold of that emotion and remembering it for a scene later, Jules pushed it away and ran.

If he wanted to find raw emotion, he resolved, he'd have to find it only in others.  If he looked inside himself, it hurt too much.  Perhaps he could look into the inner lives of the other “abandoned” boys in his school for what he needed.  And if he mimicked their emotions instead of dragging up his own maybe he could be a brilliant actor without the pain.

He jogged from the community theatre center on main street down the road and all the way back down to Dalton.  He schlepped to Stuart House and folded his body into bed.  Method acting, he decided, was a dangerous art and had to be handled with the utmost care.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based off the boarding school universe created by CP Coulter which, since its debut in her Glee fanfiction entitled "Dalton" (http://archiveofourown.org/works/679239), has expanded into a league of its own (warberland.weebly.com). While a touch of its inspiration may remain, all Glee canon will go predominately unmentioned. Characters and setting thereby belong to CP Coulter.


End file.
